In this field of Bones
by AmandaFriend
Summary: What if Brennan said no a second time, even after the separation and the Hannah-experiment?


_**In this field of bones**_

 **Note:** I had written this at the end of season 5 and into season 6 and I decided to speculate.

How wrong that speculation was.

In this universe, there's Afghanistan and Maluku and Hannah. But when Hannah's in the wind and Brennan still won't commit to him, and even suggests that she will be going away, Booth's patience is gone. But hope remains. There's a high angst content here, but it will all resolve itself in the end due to a trial that draws both of them in.

When I wrote this, I hadn't anticipated The Doctor in the Photo, so that one episode kind of kills the whole premise for this story as does Blackout in the Blizzard and Hole in the Heart. It's finished and it's sitting here on the computer and well, the computer has had a few thoughts on my latest work. . . losing a few choice chapters that just won't write themselves, and I thought, well, I can toss this into the mix and really confuse the heck out of people trying to follow my stories that show up when they show up and. . . .

BTW, my word processor decided it liked to put dash lines into the story in an almost helter-skelter manner. I've tamed them a bit and tried to put them into the most appropriate places, but who knows?

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Bones. I do enjoy taking them out to play.

"You're a Brennan. It's part of your DNA, Bones. You leave. Brennans leave."

She recoils from the words as if they are a slap and he freezes, certain that he has created a thick chasm between them now and pushed her to the other side with his words.

And his anger is so great, his own hurt so deep, he doesn't care how much he wounds her.

Her mouth moves and it is in this instant that he hopes she will say something, anything, to break the silence. But she does not.

And in his anger and his pain, he will not.

Yet her eyes laser in on his, icy blue and hard now. Whatever hurts he has opened up will not bleed in front of him. She bends to pick up her bag and again he wants her to say something, to do something. Reach across this line they keep laying down and slap him.

Anything would be better than this icy calm, this angry cold.

But she gives him one more look. She cannot hide her hurt, not after 6 years of partnership. The ice seems to be melting in her eyes and he can see a hint of tears glistening with pain.

Only one woman can turn his insides to pudding or cause him to be this hurtful. He turns instead, his shoulders squared against the hurts of the world, the hurt of her departure, and walks away, retreating across the grassy expanse of the park. Only when he reaches the paved footpath does he turn to see that she is now only a speck of dark blue against the fall sky.

oOo

For almost six years they had been in and out of each other's lives sometimes in very intimate ways.

She was, if he could be totally objective—intriguing and infuriating, intelligent and exasperating, beautiful and conceited.

And someone he loved.

At one time, her emotions had seemed to consist of arrogance, arrogance, and oh, arrogance. Over time, he had seen a depth to her emotional world that included compassion and empathy, generosity and kindness.

They had been so deeply involved in each other's world that what had once been a partnership of necessity became a necessity of partnership. They craved each other's company, sought each other's special understanding of the world.

Some might say that she had learned a great deal from him when he took her—reluctantly—out of the lab and into the real world.

But in truth, she had taught him a great deal as well.

Yet he had not learned the right time to tell her his feelings. And that one night, outside the Hoover, their partnership had almost disintegrated when he told her that he loved her.

Oh, they continued to work together. They continued to solve murders. They continued to pretend that the work was what was most important.

And in trying to stay together, they simply were pulling further and further apart.

So it had and had not surprised him when he learned that she was taking a leave of absence from the Jeffersonian to examine ancient remains in Indonesia. She was escaping the avalanche of emotions that were threatening her orderly world.

Her departure had been the catalyst for his retreat. He'd rejoined the Army as a trainer of soldiers in Afghanistan.

In the desert, he had moved on from her. Hannah had become his oasis, his hope in the desert, a journalist who trailed him home and loved him as he had once hoped Brennan would.

But eventually that hope and Hannah had faded from his life. Once more, a different hope presented itself and he made the step toward what had seemed inevitable: _them_. Instead, his exasperatingly beautiful partner was flying off to another escape, to another field of bones.

Had he simply let her go and tried to forge a new direction for himself, alone, they might have had a chance at salvaging something. But he had confronted her, demanded she give them a chance again. He should have known that by crowding her, he had only forced her to run from the flood of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her.

The scene never failed to upset him, even weeks after she had flown away.

oOo

"It will take anywhere from four to twelve weeks, Booth, to fully examine the skeletal remains. . . ."

"Wait. Hold on." He pulls himself up from the bench he's been sitting on and he tries to distance himself from what she is saying. "Wait." He holds up his hand as if he can stem the flood of emotions that seem to be assaulting him

"You can't leave."

What starts out as a nice picnic lunch in the park outside the museum has turned into another gut-wrenching conversation that is spinning out of control. He's done everything right this time—he's tried to compile evidence of how well they are together and presented it gradually, his inspiration found in the slowly changing leaves of autumn.

But when she starts to talk about Peru and a pit of skeletons that might be thousands of years old, he reacts like a tightly wound spring. He begins to pummel her calm with his own disquiet and within minutes they are both on their feet inches away physically, but miles apart in oh, so many ways.

"Damn it, Bones, you haven't heard anything I've said to you."

"Booth, it's only for twelve weeks at. . . ."

"If you don't want to be partners, fine. Tell me. If you don't want to be together, tell me. Don't run off to Peru to study Ichabod. . . ."

"Itchatal. . . ."

"Whatever."

His tone startles a group of children chasing after a Frisbee and they skulk away from the two of them, guilty for having intruded on their argument.

"Booth." Her voice has grown husky and distraught. Twelve weeks. Three months apart. Ninety more days of an impossibly impossible situation. And he can see just how difficult it is for her to say more. She is so good at burying her emotions that to unearth them takes a Herculean effort. "Please just understand. . . ."

But he cannot care anymore. He has told her he wants them to be more than partners. He has told her he wants to take it slowly. They will deal with the Bureau later.

Their hearts deserve more than to be confined by a damned rule book.

"So you're running away."

Cam and Angela and even Sweets seem to think that Brennan is ready. Even the beautiful scientist has been dropping hints that suggest she, too, feels the urges that have been pulling them together like magnets. He didn't need the Discovery channel to teach him what he is hearing from her might actually be real.

"It's a very important dig. I need to think about what you've said. I need. . . ."

"What is there to think about?" He is normally a patient man. But he is patient no more.

"You're going to hide from your feelings." He is unrelenting. "Hiding from your feelings for me. You're running because that's the only. . . ."

"That's ridiculous. I am not running," she counters, her anger growing. "The Peru government. . . ."

"You are afraid that you could, we could actually have. . . ."

"Needs my expertise in identifying the remains that might be part of. . . ."

"Keep telling yourself that." He stands nose to nose with her, his anger an engine that refuses to stop. He grabs one arm and held her. "You are running away because you can't possibly believe your heart."

"My heart?" She holds steady in his iron grip. "The heart is a muscle. . . ."

"Your heart is a metaphor for feelings. For caring. For emotions." He lets go of her arm and takes a step back. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

Her blue eyes are unusually bright, but his frustration refuses to allow him to be drawn in.

He has tried. He has thought that she had finally allowed herself to believe. Just as there had been small signs after his coma that she might be open to expanding their relationship beyond a mere partnership; there had been signs here, too, after Hannah.

He wants her to believe. To believe how open his heart could be for both of them until her heart could match his. To believe how open her heart had become over the years.

To believe just enough to give them a chance.

He had only meant to have lunch with her, a picnic outside the lab. To remove themselves from the confines of the Hoover and the Jeffersonian, to allow themselves the openness of the park, the beauty of the fall colors washing over the city.

And that's when she told him that she was leaving.

Something inside him broke. Hope had fueled his confession. He tried to lay out the evidence so she could see that he still wanted her, still wanted _them_.

And all she seemed to want was escape.

"You know, I finally get it. I finally understand you." He stepped back from her and let his eyes scan her from her feet to her head. He felt broken inside and only wanted to take the jagged pieces and stab at her calm. "You're a Brennan," he said.

"Yes." Her confusion was evident.

"Yeah, Brennans run. Your parents ran. Your brother. So it is an anthropological inevitability that you would run as well."

The words had stung her. She had recoiled just as if he had hit her. He could have pulled his verbal punch, but his own emotions had taken control and later he would sometimes lie awake at night wondering how he could have been so cruel. "You are going to run away from me, from a man who loves you and all your scientific explanations for human emotions because I know that deep down inside of you lies a woman who has a heart that feels and wants to believe that she can be loved. But you can't possibly believe that I can love you because after all these years of working together of being together as partners and as friends, you don't trust me. You don't trust me."

"So run. Go ahead. It's what you're really good at. There lies your true genius."

He'd broken them with those words, he was sure of it. By the time he had gotten back to the SUV he realized that she'd left her mini kit on the seat. So he drove back past the building, past where he had left her and slowed then stopped the vehicle, his emergency lights on as he looked for her.

She was gone.

When she returned from her weekend getaway with her husband, Angela Montenegro-Hodgins said nothing to him about Brennan. Booth hadn't bothered asking. The first time he saw Angela he knew that the artist knew what he had done. Angela, usually still so open and vivacious, guarded her friend's secrets. Hodgins, too, seemed cordial but distant when it came to anything Brennan.

Perhaps he was, as Sweets said, projecting his own feelings onto them.

Cam understood. They were old friends, old lovers. He could drink with Cam and tell her things he might have once told Brennan.

But he couldn't fall in love with someone like Cam.

Or anyone else for that matter.

He tried. He accepted the looks of other women and took some of them home to his bed during that time. A few dates. A few phone calls. Flowers. Dinner.

Sex. Just sex.

But, deep down, his Catholic guilt revolted and sex was never quite just sex with him. That's why he found himself sitting at the Founding Fathers drinking one Friday night with Cam rather than trolling for someone to warm his bed.

"It's been weeks, Seeley." Cam eyed him over her wine glass and took a sip. He had been avoiding thinking or talking about what had happened with Brennan for what seemed like an eon, but it still seemed to linger like an early morning fog. Cam set down the glass and held his eyes with her own. "Maybe you should just call her and pretend that nothing happened."

"Cam, she's in Peru. It is her MO."

He shot her a look and concentrated on finishing one drink so he could have another. He enjoyed the numbness that one could maintain from Friday night to Sunday night on those weekends he did not have Parker.

"All right, I'll drop it." But the quirk of her head told him otherwise. "I will tell you that she is no longer in Peru."

"What?"

"She finished the work," Cam said and shrugged her shoulders. "Or left early. I don't really know. She's been gone from that country for a while according to my sources."

"Angela."

Cam nodded. "Angela."

"So? What now?"

His stomach seemed to seize on him and he quickly set his drink down on the table. The glass hitting the wood seemed loud to him and he glanced at Cam to see if she had heard it as well.

"It's not clear," Cam said. "Hey, Stires has a three-month contract. Brennan will be welcomed back, Seeley, but we're better off with Dr. Stires right now."

He snorted and shook his head. Dr. Michael Stires had once been Brennan's teacher and lover and had Booth had any say in the matter, he would have pulled out his gun and shot the man rather than hire him.

"We're better off with Stires, Seeley." Cam leaned in. "He's good at his job and he's fit in." She said the last two words with some irony. "Sort of."

"Stires humiliated Bones on the stand, Cam." He considered the amber liquid in front of him. "That's hard to forget."

"You can't forgive him for what he did to your former partner or you can't forgive yourself, Seeley?"

Booth sat back and tried to order his thoughts. Both Angela and Hodgins knew how the man had questioned Brennan's humanity and her findings in one case that pitted student against teacher. They had reluctantly accepted Stires' presence—under protest, really- but they hadn't befriended him. They were loyal.

More loyal than he had been.

"Cam, I work with the man. He does fine." Booth drained his glass. The Scotch seemed to have lost its alcohol content. He pushed the glass away.

"You know I didn't know what his history was when we hired him. And the board wanted someone close to Dr. Brennan's stature. They didn't want, well, you know."

Booth raised his hands in surrender. "I get it, Cam, I get it. Friday no Bones. Monday Stires. I get it."

"They wanted someone quickly and Clark wasn't available. We've been through this."

Booth sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face.

"Everyone is doing their work. There is no drama," Cam leveled her eyes with his, "no FBI guy wanting to sleep with the forensic anthropologist. Unless you've developed different tastes."

He shot her a look, but her smile was all the apology he was going to get.

"Hey, big guy," she said as she laid her hand on his wrist, "it will get easier in time. I promise you."

He thought he would have a few more weeks to get over her.

He'd been wrong.

It was Cam who relayed the events to him that next week. Cam who found the forensic anthropologist's return as unsettling and as bizarre as some of the remains she had examined at the Jeffersonian's lab.

One afternoon a lawyer and a scientist entered the lab, Cam had said. Booth had taken it to be some kind of convoluted joke, but Cam had been serious. They had come to examine the remains of a man who had been a foster father for years, killed by one of his young charges. The case had fallen to the FBI since the man had been a National Park Service Ranger living on government land.

Dr. Temperance Brennan who had a penchant for finding the proof to convict murderers was holding court on the side of the defense.

It had not set well with Cam.

He could imagine the exchange, the way that each woman took their stance and held their ground. Booth had been aware of the two scientists sometimes vying for dominance at the lab—the hard-headed anthropologist wedded to reason and truth and the equally stubborn coroner who understood the intricacies of gray areas and the ways in which the real world worked.

Bones and flesh. One understood the hard realities of science. One understood the soft realities of humans.

Between the various reports of what had happened, Booth could imagine the exchange as if he had been there:

"The board of the Jeffersonian will never support one of their own working against the forensics lab of the Jeffersonian," said Dr. Camille Saroyan, her annoyance palpable. "It greatly undermines the integrity of the lab. Employees cannot be working for and against the prosecution."

"I am technically on a leave of absence from the Jeffersonian," came the reply.

"But you _are_ still an employee of this institution." Cam's voice was clipped and certain. There would be no compromise. Standing before the scientist, her arms crossed in front of her, Cam's challenge was clear.

And quickly answered. Snapping off her latex gloves, Dr. Temperance Brennan pocketed them, then asked, "May I use your computer terminal?"

"Of course," said Cam, turning to lead the woman to the Autopsy Lab. The only sound was a small involuntary gasp from Angela Montenegro who had been a silent witness to the exchange and the clicking of heels against the floor, slowly fading away.

"She's not . . . ," Angela turned toward Dr. Jack Hodgins and gasped again. "Oh, my God."

Hodgins turned toward Angela and clasped an elbow in his hand. "No, she wouldn't," he said. He glanced at the Autopsy Lab which refused to give up its secrets since the two women had disappeared within. He shot a look back toward the platform where the defense attorney stood, his expression stony. "She can't."

But moments later, the look on Cam's face and the unreadable expression on Brennan's had spoken the truth. Cam only paused at the platform to swipe the access card for Brennan who swept past her and up the steps.

Angela stood shocked, her hands pressed to her mouth. "You didn't accept her resignation," Hodgins heard himself say. "You couldn't have."

"She gave me no choice," Cam stated. "If she hadn't resigned, I would have had to fire her."

There was a hard edge to her voice, an angry glint in her eyes. And resignation. "She'll have two hours with the remains."

"You didn't." The artist's joy at seeing her best friend again after months apart had evaporated and been replaced by shock and awe. Angela looked pale and drawn. Hodgins wrapped an arm around her.

"We still have work to do, people," said Cam. She hesitated and twisted to look toward the forensics platform. "But I don't much feel like doing it."

Had Special Agent Seeley Booth believed solely in luck, he might have taken the appearance of the shiny copper penny as a good omen. "Find a penny, pick it up," he said as he stretched down and retrieved the penny on the sidewalk in front of the Royal Diner, "for the rest of the day, you'll have good luck."

"Are you putting together your retirement account already?" quipped Caroline Julian. "Or just getting some exercise?"

He smirked and followed the prosecuting attorney into the diner. For Booth, who had always surrounded himself with strong-willed women. Caroline was one of the toughest minded of the women he worked with and he admired her for her honesty and scathing wit.

With a grunt, the large woman sidled herself into one of the stools at the counter and indicated that Booth was to take the seat next to hers. "We're going to need two large Scotch and tonics, hold the tonic," she drawled. At the waitress' confused look, she shrugged and asked for two coffees and slices of pie. "Heavy on the sugar content, Cherie, we're going to need it."

"What gives, Caroline?" Booth asked. The attorney was visibly disturbed.

"We have a problem in the Gillette murder trial," she began, grabbing the coffee cup from the waitress and holding it steady as she poured. "The defense have got themselves some fancy smancy scientist type to counter all the evidence your little nerd posse at that lab of yours has put together."

"So what? It's not even your case, Caroline. I thought Michelson was prosecuting."

"He is, Cherie, and he's going to have his hands full."

Booth poured sugar into his coffee and stirred it with his spoon. "We're got good forensics, Caroline. I know it was the first case without. . .," he paused, a reflexive action since his partner had left for some dig halfway around the world to be rid of him and his unwelcome feelings, "but Dr. Stires. . . ."

"Just taught that genius lady scientist of yours."

"What?"

All the old feelings seemed to punch him directly in the stomach and he put down the piece of piece he had speared with his fork. "Michelson is not worried because he thinks he has the whole of the Jeffersonian behind him to corroborate that Gillette is guilty of murder. But you'll want your little nerdettes to double and triple check their evidence."

"Caroline," he felt his throat tighten, "what the hell are you saying?"

She sighed. "Your old partner, Dr. Brennan, has agreed to be the defense's scientist. She's examining the remains at the Jeffersonian as we speak."

For Special Agent Seeley Booth, the evidence was clear and irrefutable. Mark Gillette had been in and out of foster homes for 5 of his 17 years. His parents and older brother had died in a car crash leaving him orphaned and unwanted. According to the case files, the boy's IQ had placed him in the upper echelons of intelligence that set the shy boy apart from his peers.

Depressed and abandoned by parents who had sheltered him, Gillette had tried to survive the foster care system by retreating into schoolwork. It seemed to be the only constant in his life besides neglect and abuse. But his last foster home had apparently broken him. While his foster father, George Webb, slept, Mark Gillette, in a fit of rage, allegedly stabbed the man to death.

Webb's wife had walked in on the boy bending over the dead body of his foster father. The boy had tried to explain that he had heard a noise, that he went to investigate, but in the absence of other suspects with his clothes covered with blood, he had no defense. He had claimed to have tried to save the man, but forensic evidence compiled by the Jeffersonian had been damning.

And now Temperance Brennan's return was unraveling his attempts to move past her as she sought to break down the case he had built against Gillette.

He couldn't really pinpoint the exact moment that everything had shifted. It might have been the moment he heard the doctors tell him he had a brain tumor. Or the moment he awoke, confused, certain and uncertain at the same time that the woman hovering over him was both his wife and his partner. Or was it when Dr. Lance Sweets had given them copies of his book only to have what had been a whim, a ticket to gain access to his psychological profiling, turn into the disintegration of a highly successful partnership of five years? Or was it the moment he met her?

Hell, if it wasn't 10 o'clock in the morning he might have found a bar and drowned his thoughts in a half bottle of Scotch. Hold the tonic.

She'd gone off half a world away to escape—escape from him, escape from her feelings, escape from what they could have. And he had damned her for it. He had asked if she felt anything in her heart because his own was breaking. How could a woman who would trek miles to avoid the Chinese army or face down drug lords or stand up to El Salvadorian death squads be so intimidated by a man who loved her that she would have to flee?

The bundle of contradictions had run to work and to science and abandoned him.

They weren't compatible. They weren't on the same stratosphere when it came to intelligence and money and acclaim. And despite the women he sometimes took to his bed these days, he had been unable to erase Temperance Brennan from his mind and his heart.

Caroline had told him about Bones' return out of friendship. Moments after the news had somehow registered, Cam, Angela and Hodgins filed into the diner, their looks clouded. Of the three, Angela looked the most distressed. Hodgins held her hand, directing her toward one of the tables by the window, never quite letting her go.

Cam had lingered, her face mirroring the mood of the others. She took a deep breath, but Booth offered his own news. "Bones is working for Gillette."

She gave a definitive nod of her head. "But did you know that she resigned her position at the Jeffersonian?"

"Conflict of interest," he said dully. He felt as if he'd been sucker punched and he slumped back against the counter. Part of him had always hoped that Temperance Brennan would return to the Jeffersonian and they would have found some way to mend their partnership. Their friendship.

He'd much rather have had a part of her rather than nothing.

"Seeley?" Cam, one of his oldest and dearest friends, knew just how deeply he had fallen for the forensic anthropologist. "She told me that she was only taking this case to ensure that the truth would be told."

"So she's got reasonable doubt?" Caroline hmmphed and shook her head. "I just want to know what kind of trouble you caused to send her across the world and turn her against us."

"Come on," Cam countered, "our case is strong. All the evidence pointed to Gillette as the murderer. The forensics in this case is strong. Very strong."

"Yes, well, that egghead scientist had a damned fine record." Caroline said. "With you," she said, poking a finger into Booth's shoulder.

"You want to join us?" Jack Hodgins had appeared next to Cam, his face grave. He thumbed toward the table where Angela still sat. "I don't think Angela's going to be up for going back to work."

Cam hugged herself. "I understand," she drawled. "Don't much feel like working after this."

"I didn't think you liked that brainiac much," Caroline said.

Booth chose to veer off that subject. Cam hadn't always understood Brennan, but she certainly respected her. "Angela's pretty upset."

"I guess all of us figured that we've come this far, we'd still be a team. Eventually." Hodgins looked as distraught as when they had learned how Dr. Zack Addy had teamed up with a cannibal.

For several moments no one broke the heavy silence of the small group in the diner. Booth gauged their reactions with his own and realized that his heart felt betrayed.

"I'm just saying," Hodgins finally said, "it's going to be strange, very strange to see Brennan testifying on the other side. Trying to break our case."

"Well, people," Caroline countered, "just make sure she doesn't break a damned thing."

More than once leading up to the trial he found himself in Brennan's neighborhood, just a few blocks from her apartment building. Had he just taken a few minutes more, veered left rather than right, he might have been right outside her building.

But both Caroline and Cam had warned him to stay away from Brennan. "You don't want to go back down that road, Seeley Booth," Cam had said.

"She's like oxygen to your fire," Caroline had warned, "and there's no telling what kind of damage the two of you are going to do to the other."

Two other cases had demanded his attention and he refused to give into the urge to seek her out. But neither case had prevented stray thoughts.

"The trial will be soon enough to test that heart of yours, Seeley," Cam had said. "You don't need to drag yourself through that again."

Somehow he knew that Angela and Hodgins hadn't been as circumspect. After all, Angela was Brennan's best friend, and Jack Hodgins had been her colleague and fellow squint. He could tell that Angela and Brennan had reconnected although the artist never admitted that to him. Angela and Hodgins, after all, were his friends, too.

For several days the prosecution piled bits and pieces into the scales of justice, effectively weighing evidence against Mark Gillette. The young man seemed almost overwhelmed by the testimony. Angela could identify the victim and the manner of how he had been stabbed to death. Sweets offered a psychological profile of the abuse the young man had suffered and almost tangible proof of his unbridled rage that led to the killing. Cam and Dr. Stires described the injuries that lead to the foster father's death. Hodgins sealed the case by describing materials that were found on the victim and the attacker, effectively tying them together in a Gordian knot.

And throughout the trial, Dr. Temperance Brennan had been a silent witness to it all.

On the first day of the defense's turn he had tried to ignore her presence. Sniper training had helped. Discipline.

On the second day, he had snuck a glance at her.

By the third day, his curiosity had overcome his common sense, and he tried to read where she had been, what she might be thinking, simply from the familiar contours of her face.

Even at her coldest, most controlled, the delicate features of her face always seemed to be so open to him. He could read the underlying emotions with more accuracy than anyone he knew. Few others had tried to tap into that wealth of information because of the remote, aloof façade she often presented.

But he had difficulty reading her in those stolen moments when he caught a look. She certainly kept to herself although a few times he could sense that she, too, was casting a curious glance his way.

In all ways, her demeanor and movements were quiet and economical. He often wondered if she had learned to move that way because she hadn't wanted to draw too much attention to herself in her foster families.

By all the rules of jurisprudence, thankfully, the Jeffersonian contingent at the trial had little contact with the defense. Of that, Booth was more than grateful. He sometimes wondered where she had been during their separation, why she had chosen this case to make a statement, when she might actually melt and deign to talk.

But she hadn't been able to avoid Cam. Or Stires.

He heard the words echoing down the corridor long before he saw them. Stires and Brennan had once been more than teacher and student—they had had a sexual relationship that had soured during a trial in which they had been pitted against each other. There was still a hint of the competition between them in this trial.

Cam later told Booth that she had opened the first salvo. She'd finished in the ladies' room when Brennan appeared just outside, her ear to a cell phone.

"I only wanted to, oh, I don't know, Seeley," she had admitted, "to get her to say more than a few words to me. Hell, I'd worked with the woman for four years and thought I deserved some kind of explanation why she decided this was the case to break her ties to the Jeffersonian. I guess I just wanted to know if it was going to be worth it. You know the kind of case we had against Gillette."

Cam had told him the first part of the tale the evening of the incident. She'd bought them a slew of drinks and was on her way to being poured into a taxi—something he'd seen only rarely with Cam. "I just waited until she was off the phone, Seeley, and I told her that I wanted her to know how much I really appreciated her work over the years. But I wanted to know why she had chosen to leave. What about this case made her decide that it was more important than her work at the Jeffersonian."

"You know how she gets?" Cam had asked him in the bar. "That look?"

Bones had so many looks that he had cataloged over the years she couldn't quite place the one she wanted.

"Like she's superior to us lower primates?" Cam was on a roll and Booth sat back and tried not to judge too harshly.

"Then she said something that was remarkable."

"That she's really from planet Vulcan?"

He cracked the joke just to push away the pain that was inevitable. He still liked the woman; hell, he loved Brennan and he had spent too much time trying to shield his heart to want to revisit the ache.

Cam smiled sadly and patted his arm. She understood. "No, she told me that she had learned a great deal from me." Cam gestured with her glass in hand. "And she thanked me."

Booth leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes. Damn that woman, he thought. She could still surprise.

He'd only seen the back end of the exchange. The stand-off between Stires and Brennan that had warranted action. Only now was he able to piece together the whole story. "So what was Stires trying to do?"

Booth had intervened before Cam could pull Stires away from Brennan, but the exchange was caustic. Brennan had been visibly angry. Stires, for all his poise and worldliness, had seemed almost feral in his attack.

"He exchanged the regular pleasantries before he accused her of trying to polish her reputation on this case. 'Become the darling of the justice system because you can show them how your great intellect and superiority can be manipulated in order to manufacture truth.'"

Booth let out a low whistle. Stires' words had been intended to maim her spirit. He had done the same thing before, denigrating her abilities as a means of breaking her.

Stires, the teacher, had been far surpassed by his pupil and he resented her for it.

"And there was more. Brennan went on how she wasn't doing anything more than presenting the evidence in the case. Hell, she seemed surprised that we didn't see it."

"He said he would have used whatever influence he had to discredit her and destroy her reputation, but that she was doing a damned fine job on her own."

Cam punctuated the retelling with a long drink from her glass. Booth waited as Cam put down the glass and closed her eyes. Of all the women he had worked with over the years, Temperance Brennan had earned her formidable reputation and only a huge error in judgment could tarnish it. She would have had to manufacture the skeletal remains of Bigfoot and tried to sell them on eBay as real before she could crack the regard in which she was held within her world of anthropology.

Cam exhaled. "And you know what?" Booth could tell she had reached numbness, her head movements and gestures seemed to be more exaggerated. Cam rarely drank to excess since she did not like to lose control. But Brennan's reappearance in their lives had had a domino effect on all their emotions. Even Cam's. "I've been through everything at least a dozen times and I don't see it. I just don't see it."

"See what?" Booth pulled out his phone and began to run down his phone book looking for the number of the cab service for the area.

"What she saw in the bones. What she saw in the case files, Seeley." Cam pushed her empty glass away and Booth began to dial the number.

"Cam?"

"She told Angela she only took the case because Gillette was innocent. She spent seconds on that forensic platform looking at those bones and seeing that Gillette was innocent. Seconds."

Cam's esses seemed to slur together. "I've been through the reports and all the evidence and I don't see it. Stires has been through everything and he's convinced she's wrong. There's nothing there."

"And yet," he said, holding the cell to his ear as he waited for the phone to ring, "you don't trust that you're right."

The fight outside the washrooms had echoed in the hallways. Stires had accused Brennan of relying on her ego for proof rather than science and logic. With little regard for where they were or who was listening, Brennan had tried to defend herself, her voice rising and drawing Booth's attention. That's when he had stepped in and ushered Stires away.

And used his own words to push her away.

It hadn't been much, just a "get the hell away from here" comment hissed at her so that the guards wouldn't break it up, so the judge would not know just how close they had been to breaking the trust of the court.

But the words had been enough. She flinched.

Temperance Brennan never flinched.

Maybe he had said, "Get the hell away from me."

For a man who worked law enforcement and relied heavily on observation and memory, he could not really remember what he had said to her. He should remember. They were the first words he had said to her in over twelve weeks.

He tried to remember if only to understand just how his words had stung her and made her recoil as if he had jabbed her with his fist. He hadn't expected her to talk to him during the trial. Each party was to stand on their side of the line until after the trial. It was the rules. And Brennan was one for rules.

Over the weekend as he spent time with his son, he tried to stow away all thoughts of Brennan. Thankfully Parker, who had had his own crush on Bones, had ceased asking about her. Like father, like son. Only within the last few weeks had Parker stopped asking about the bone lady. Maybe Rebecca had had enough. Maybe his adolescent brain had moved on to something else.

But despite all his attempts to forget, all Booth could do was remember.

The memories came at night when Parker had wound down and Booth found himself in bed alone and restless. Saturday night had been torture. Sunday had been worse.

By Monday morning, his own armor around his heart had cracked and he answered Parker's query with the truth rather than his standard issue of lies.

"Dad, do you ever think about Bones?"

That Monday morning he felt his heart at risk. Parker's question, his response. They had nicked an artery and made his heart bleed. Before he could tamp down the assault, Parker had found another way to wound his already scarred heart. "You do miss her, Dad, don't you?"

There was no way to miss her. The defense planned on delivering their case on her testimony that morning or that afternoon.

So he wasn't surprised; fate tended to mock his resolve. He had turned a corner, moments after checking his phone messages. He'd practically crashed into her, but veered off at the last minute. Like some kind of magnetic pull, they both stopped.

"Bones."

She said nothing at first, her wide blue eyes focused and challenging. But they softened and for a moment, he felt his own guard fall a bit.

"Booth."

He noted a hint of warmth in her voice and simply drank in her features. It was a face he knew so well—eyes of a blue that seemed to change with the light, an expanse of porcelain skin, a small mouth that offered a wealth of desire. . . .

"Dr. Brennan?"

He could see Brennan's slight hesitation before her guard went up as Gillette's defense attorney rounded the corner and positioned himself between the former partners. He saw the briefest question in her eyes, then it retreated as the attorney escorted her away from him.

In the courtroom, he wrapped steel around his heart, and welcomed Cam at one side and Angela on the other. Cam was calm, and Angela had somehow recovered her good spirits since she and Brennan now seemed to have reconnected. Hodgins offered another buffer between himself and Stires who seemed intent on whispering points to the prosecuting attorney's assistant who then relayed them to the lawyer.

Only Dr. Lance Sweets seemed to acknowledge Brennan's presence to him with a carefully placed hand on his shoulder when she entered. Booth swatted the offending hand from his shoulder with a pointed look at the psychologist who sat back sheepishly on the bench behind him.

No one needed to tell Booth when Brennan entered. He sensed it. Across the aisle, Brennan slipped in beside the boy's social worker and foster mother.

Gillette himself was shy of 6 feet, thin and quiet. Booth remembered the boy's declarations of innocence, the explanation for the blood on his clothes, the defensive wounds on his arms. He had claimed that his foster father had beaten him, but he had retreated to his room above the garage and remained there until he heard a strange noise and went to investigate.

Stires had pushed for him to be the killer from the start. The man had no doubts and the evidence had been damning.

But as Booth found himself staring at Brennan, he realized that the facts in evidence couldn't possibly tell the story.

Brennan simply understood the truth and was biding her time to tell it.

Dr. Michael Stires, on the other hand, was putting his student on trial.

Booth had seen his performance before. Hell, Booth himself knew the importance of performance on the witness stand and had used charm, humor, understatement and anything else he could to color his testimony.

Stires, however, had been altogether a star on the stand.

From Cam through Hodgins, they all recited their information with precision and objectivity. But Stires had created a performance piece worthy of the stage. Charming, affable, understandable, he was a prosecutor's dream.

Based on Stire's personality alone, thought Booth, Gillette would rot in jail.

The man seemed to delight in his ability to twist the knife into the young man's story.

"Well, the easiest way to explain what happened is to say that Mark Gillette used the knife to repeatedly stab his foster parent," Stires had testified.

"I can certainly understand that the young man felt he had been harmed by his fostering parent." Stires had caught the faces of each of the members of the jury. He glanced toward Gillette who seemed to shrink in the glare of attention. "The young man thinks he was abused, but I've had a great deal of experience with young people as a professor." His eyes took in the jury pool again. "I know young people think that someone getting them out of bed before noon is abusive."

More than a few jury members nodded. One woman smiled. Another man smirked and shook his head.

"What Mark Gillette did was walk into his foster father's bedroom and stab the man 17 times. One time for each year of his life."

"You have no doubt that Mark Gillette caused the wounds to George Webb?" Michelson was leaving nothing to chance.

"None." He turned to the jury and addressed them directly. "I study the architecture of the body, the skeletal system. It's something that I know intimately." One of the young women on the jury smiled. "Unlike others," he allowed his words to descend on the jury, "I am basing my conclusions on the evidence. Mark Gillette seems like a kid who got a tough break. But he had motive for harming George  
Webb, he had opportunity for killing the man who took him in, and he had means." He held the evidence bag with the knife that had been plunged into Webb's chest. "He killed the man, stood over the body." He set the knife down on the top of the witness box. The sound of metal against wood punctuated his point. "The evidence is conclusive."

When they called Brennan to the stand, she stood with a graceful ease, smoothed her skirt and walked toward the stand just as he had seen her do dozens of times. She wore a blue suit that seemed to accentuate her eyes. Those eyes. They could be wide and piercing, lasers honing in on one's very soul.

Today, she turned those eyes on the jury. The defense attorney simply led her testimony to the one truth that separated Gillette from guilt.

"Let me understand this, Dr. Brennan. You are saying that the stab wounds suffered by George Webb were delivered at an angle. And the angle of those stab wounds was such that they could not have been made as the prosecution has claimed?"

When Brennan had first explained the attack as she saw it, Booth could hear the gasps coming from both Cam and Angela.

"I can't believe we missed that," Cam whispered under her breath.

Using a computer reenactment as sophisticated as one that might have come from Angela's computers, Brennan showed the knife attack as Stires' had described it. The initial stab wounds came at an angle suggesting that as George Webb lay in bed, someone lying next to him plunged a knife into his chest several times.

"The angle of the attack suggests that George Webb was on the left side of the bed." Brennan carefully laid out the attack, each wound numbered and explained.

"So the attacker was not standing next to the body as Dr. Stires has suggested."

Booth caught the flare of anger in Stires' eyes as her former teacher stared at Brennan.

In a courtroom drama on TV, the trial might be stopped immediately. But in real life, the prosecutor would want a chance to dissect the evidence and throw up doubt. Booth had told Bones dozens of times that trials weren't always about truth.

Despite her testimony, despite how well her facts fit the events, trials didn't stop with the dramatic turn but often lingered on in the minutia of details.

"He couldn't have done it," Angela said again as if a mantra. "He couldn't have."

Booth stared at Brennan willing her to look his way and give him some sign that he had misunderstood, that she had reconfigured the events to save the young man with an alternative story.

But he knew she had simply seen the evidence and was telling the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but.

Gillette seemed relieved, almost reborn by the information that Brennan had presented. He glanced at the jury for a moment before turning his attention back to Brennan, back to the woman who had just saved his life.

And damned her own.

The defense attorney had walked Brennan through the evidence and between them they had laid out a masterful defense. The fatal blow could not have been delivered by Gillette that seemed so obvious given Brennan's recitation. She carefully challenged the prosecution's case, point by point, each fact clear and precise. Each fact clearly showed just how wrong Stire's analysis had been.

And everything had hinged on two small bits of evidence that had been ignored.

The angle of the attack. Somehow Stires has missed it. The fact that Gillette had been injured and could not have used his left arm to attack Webb and an attack with his right would have altered the angle substantially. A thorough examination of X-rays of Gillette's shoulders had shown repeated, prolonged abuse had made it impossible for him to lift his arms above his own shoulders and had sapped the young man of almost 60% of his arm strength. "His first attacks with a knife in his non-dominant hand would have been very weak," Brennan had testified, "and well could have woken his foster father who could have easily over-powered him."

Truth.

Yet trials weren't always about truth. He had warned her.

The glaze of confidence that Stires wore had cracked. But he recovered the sheen of arrogance he'd worn and leaned into Michelson's assistant's ear, his raspy whispers driving home his points.

Maybe trials should end the moment the truth has been discovered, thought Booth. Maybe Bones was right.

The defense attorney looked almost triumphant as he sat down.

"Cross examination, Mr. Michelson?"

The prosecutor hesitated. The assistant was pointing out scribbles hastily made on the legal pad, Michelson's head bobbing.

"Mr. Michelson? Did you want to cross examine this witness?"

He held up a single finger, then rose quickly to his feet. "Yes, my apologies, your honor. I would very much like to cross examine."

And so it began. Booth was not a man for such things, but this he understood to be the dance of the justice system. With the lawyers leading, the dance would produce the appropriate response from the jury. A dip here, a twirl there, and the effect would mesmerize.

Not for the last time, he thought, a trial should be about the truth.

"Dr. Brennan, I understand that you recently ended you association with the Jeffersonian, the same institution that supplied the forensic science and scientists who testified on behalf of the state."

Almost instantly, Booth saw this pathway and glanced up at Brennan willing her to see it as well. All science and logic, she might not know where Michelson would take her since his tools involved human nature and motivations.

"Yes."

"And you recently resigned from that institution?"

"Yes." Her expression did not betray her feelings.

"Could we say that you have something to prove here, Dr. Brennan? Prove that you. . . ."

The rest of Michelson's question was lost to Booth as he heard Hodgins whisper something to Angela as the artist shifted uncomfortably on one side.

"I only wanted to tell the truth about what happened. I do not have to prove anything about my competence as a forensic anthropologist."

Booth almost laughed at the spark of arrogance. The woman who he had been watching over the days of the trial had seemed almost a ghost of the old Brennan, someone who drifted by leaving little behind except wonderment.

Michelson's attack would not center on the evidence, but on the woman on the stand. It was a mark of desperation.

"You told your former employers at the Jeffersonian that you had discovered what you call truth."

"I told Dr. Stires prior to being engaged by the defense, but he made it clear that the information was unwelcome."

Immediately Stires had five sets of eyes boring into him, but he did not acknowledge them.

"And did you try to tell Dr. Saroyan of your findings?"

Cam stiffened next to Booth.

"I could not at the time. Dr. Saroyan refused to allow me to make a complete examination of the remains unless I submitted to being fired or unless I resigned. I chose to resign."

There was no rancor in Brennan's tone, but simply a recitation of the facts. Cam let out the air she had been holding and Booth could feel her guilt. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

"Because it would be a conflict of interest for you to represent the accused?"

"Yes." Brennan looked pointedly at the group from the Jeffersonian. "I understood the dilemma and I chose to proceed logically. I understood the quandary for Dr. Saroyan and I have too much regard for her as a scientist and as an administrator to compromise her integrity."

Cam squeezed Booth's hand.

"But you chose to share your findings with Dr. Stires?"

Brennan shifted uncomfortably in the witness stand. "Yes."

"The defense is not required to share their information, their findings with the prosecution. But you chose to inform Dr. Stires prior to being engaged by the defense as their expert witness. Why?"

"Because there was no reason to submit Mark Gillette to this trial. The evidence suggests someone else committed the crime. It was logical to seek out the person who had committed the crime rather than Mr. Gillette."

"You say."

"Yes."

"And what did you base your findings on?"

Brennan did not hesitate. "My meeting with Mark Gillette. In the simplest terms, I saw that he limited range of motion in his left shoulder due to injuries sustained as a repeated and systematic form of abuse."

"And how did Dr. Stires react?"

"He told me that my interpretation of the facts was incorrect and he threatened to report my actions to the judge."

"Which he did."

"Yes."

Again, Stires was treated to five sets of eyes boring into him. He shot back a look.

"And the judge ordered you not to discuss the evidence with the prosecution."

"No. I had not been engaged by the defense and as such was not under any restrictions. But once I agreed to provide expert testimony for Mr. Gillette, I was told not to have any contact with members of the prosecution's team or face a contempt citation." Brennan paused. "But it seemed as if we could have saved a great deal of time had Dr. Stires re-examined the evidence."

The arrogance was back. To his left Booth heard Angela snicker.

"You were a foster child, were you not?"

Booth should have anticipated this line of questioning, but he had not. Brennan certainly hadn't. She shifted uncomfortably.

"Objection."

"Why, Mr. Hollister?"

"Relevance?"

Michelson rose to the occasion. "Dr. Brennan's credentials as a forensic scientist make her a credible witness, your honor. But as we all know, we're more than our occupations. Dr. Brennan's past association with the Jeffersonian and her time in the foster system can influence her findings."

"Mark Gillette is a product of the foster system and Dr. Brennan's own experiences certainly can influence her testimony."

"Your honor? Influence?"

The two lawyers traded semantics. Booth watched Brennan who seemed too aware of where the line of questioning was headed. She shifted in her seat.

Once the lawyers had exhausted their arguments, the judge barely hesitated before allowing the line of questioning.

The last time Booth had seen her look as if she wanted to crawl out of her own skin was when he had told he that he wanted more from her than a mere partnership.

"Yes, I was in the foster system."

The questions came fast and furious. Each one seemed to twist her inside out.

"Were you physically abused as a foster child?"

"I don't see the relevance."

"It has already been established that Mark Gillette was abused in the foster system. His motive for killing his foster father was to end the abuse he had received." Michelson leaned in toward Brennan. "Were you physically abused as a foster child?"

"Objection."

"Sustained."

"Do you need me to repeat the question, Dr. Brennan?"

"No." She took a breath. "Yes."

"Physically? Like Mark Gillette?"

She looked pale and seemed to shrink into the witness box. "I don't see how it is relevant."

"Your honor?" The defense attorney saw his case slipping away.

"Your honor, Dr. Brennan claims that Mark Gillette could not have done this crime. She has pointed out errors in how Dr. Stires assessed the information. He has no reason to tell us anything but the truth. Dr. Brennan, on the other hand, has first-hand knowledge of the foster care system. Her experiences directly influence her opinions, your honor."

The judge became complicit in Brennan's hell. "Answer the question, Dr. Brennan."

"Yes." Her voice had become a monotone. Cold. Remote.

"And you were in almost a dozen homes during your time in the system?"

"Yes."

"And in how many were you abused?"

"Objection." Hollister was on his feet. "Dr. Brennan has already established that she is well acquainted with the worst of the foster care system."

Stires looked triumphant as he watched the polished forensic scientist retreat behind a cold, remote mask. Hollister asked for a sidebar and the lawyers bent their heads toward the judge in an effort to resolve just how far Mikelson could take the questioning.

On the stand she sat still, a porcelain doll in place of the wounded child who had done nothing more than try to survive after being abandoned by her family. Her eyes seemed focused on some point midway between the defense bench and the witness stand.

Angela's eyes never left Brennan. Hodgins looked angry. Cam, who knew only a smattering about Brennan's past, looked on with new sympathy.

Booth was all too aware of Sweets seated behind them. Was he relishing how the judicial system was able to coax information about her childhood traumas when he had not been able to for years?

When the lawyers broke, Mikelson seemed almost triumphant.

"Dr. Brennan, you were in one foster home or another in the state of Illinois for almost three years?"

"Yes."

"And during that time, were you physically, emotionally or sexually abused?"

She drew in a breath and looked toward her former colleagues from the Jeffersonian. Angela seemed to hold her breath.

"Yes," Brennan replied. It almost came out as a sigh.

"And when you became a full-time student at Northwestern University you chose to remain on campus as a student even during the summer months rather than return to a foster home or group home."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Objection. Dr. Brennan is not on trial, your honor." Hollister, who had been content to let Brennan shoulder the responsibility to defend his client, now tried to deflect the questions pummeling her. In Brennan, he had reasonable doubt. But if the doubt circled Brennan? Booth glanced at Brennan who was composed, almost curious as to what new direction the prosecution would take.

Sweets leaned forward and whispered to the gap between Booth and Angela. "I understand they have to try to discount the witness, but they don't have to do this."

Booth gritted his teeth and felt the pressure from Cam's hand increase on his own. To his left, Angela who was probably privy to some of the tales of Brennan's past looked pale and sick. If Hodgins still wore a rubber band on which to relieve his anger, Booth was fairly certain he would have snapped it a hundred times by now.

"I'll allow it."

Brennan adjusted her frame and stared at Mikelson. "I wanted to continue my studies. Staying on campus afforded me the best opportunity. . . ."

"To avoid additional abuse at the hands of state-sponsored foster parents."

Hollister was on his feet. "Your honor, is Mr. Mikelson going to testify for Dr. Brennan?"

"Mr. Mikelson?"

The lawyer squared his shoulders and addressed the judge. "Your honor, I simply want to establish that Dr. Brennan's own experiences in the foster care system might color her opinions. Obviously Dr. Brennan's experiences were similar to those faced by the defendant, Mark Gillette. But she has certainly not turned her rage at the system against others by killing someone."

"Your honor, is Mr. Mikelson going to give us a lesson in human psychology?"

The judge sat back and for a moment Booth worried that the attempt to deflate Brennan in the eyes of the jury would continue.

But the judge called for a recess and pulled the lawyers into his chambers for a conference.

"What the hell?" Angela muttered next to Booth when, several minutes later, the bailiff escorted  
Brennan from the witness stand and to the door behind the judge's bench.

"Did she get it right?" Sweets had leaned in and was addressing Cam.

"She got it right. Gillette wouldn't have been able to stab the victim," she whispered. "Not as we described it."

Cam, Booth and Sweets all turned their attention toward Stires.

He sat apart from them his eyes on his hands which twisted nervously in his lap.

"They want to break her, don't they?"

Sweets might have been directing his comment to the prosecution, but Booth felt that it swept in Stires as well who had more than a case to lose.

"He got it wrong," Angela said. Booth turned toward her and noticed just how angry she'd become. "And now he's trying to even the score."

For some reason the comment stuck with him. In twenty minutes, the judge and lawyers returned. Brennan returned to the witness stand, cool and emotionless. Whatever had happened behind closed doors had given her an opportunity to build her defenses. In this new mode, Booth knew, she could withstand another siege.

He'd resisted her for a long time, sure his attraction had been fueled, in part, by his desire to rescue the wounded waif who resided within the brilliant and beautiful woman. When he could resist her no longer, she had left him, frightened by his love and certain she did not deserve it.

She had a strong sense of justice. A desire for what was right.

All her testimony was now doing was ripping her open and laying open the wounds that she had bound up in reason and intellect.

She had come home to rescue a boy who had been abandoned by the system and needed someone to give him a safe haven. Hope. And Booth could not help but ask throughout the trial, his optimism never quite fading: Had she come home to him as well?

Watching her on the stand, he realized that no matter what the answer to that question might have been, she might be too wounded, too broken to be fixed by his love.

If justice could be said to be merciful, justice was that day. Mikelson continued to poke and prod at Brennan's testimony about the murder. He may have already damaged her objectivity in the eyes of the jury.

But the short break in which lawyers scrabbled for control had given her back that steely strength which had seen her survive much worse.

Mikelson was largely unable to shake Brennan's testimony regarding the death. She seemed to visibly change as the testimony required of her turned from her personal demons to the facts of the case. She reiterated the facts and seemed to grow stronger as she laid out the details that had caught the Jeffersonian group by surprise.

Truth would win.

For years she had been the outsider, a genius who had difficulty being accepted, an abandoned child who had no reason to believe she was acceptable. She had learned to fight with her mind and her body and whatever tools she was given. She remained in many ways an outsider, but the people she had come to craft into a family sat in that courtroom and witnessed the very best and worst of Dr. Temperance Brennan. More than once Booth had considered how she had lost her original name—Joy—only to have it replaced by a name that demanded nothing less than modulation of that very emotion. Booth watched in fascination as she broke apart that day and all the pieces reassembled themselves. If she had been one of her skeletal systems, she would have said she had been knitted together, remodeled, into something stronger.

Mikelson had rattled her with questions about her personal history, but, if anything, her objective recitation of the facts on the stand had almost destroyed the prosecution's case. If anything, his attempt to discredit her had gained her sympathy with the jury. They seemed now to hang on every word.

But Brennan was not putting on a show for them. She was simply presenting what she knew to be true. She would have been uncomfortable thinking any of them felt sorry for her.

". . .So, Dr. Brennan, you want us to believe that you are an objective witness, a person whose testimony is uncolored by your own issues with abuse within the foster system? Come on, Dr. Brennan, you tell us that Mark Gillette did not commit this crime and provide your interpretation of the facts because you seriously think that he's already paid the price for anything he might have done because of the horrors he suffered in the foster system? For what you suffered in the system. Isn't that right, Dr. Brennan?"

To watch this new break—was she breaking Mikelson?—was almost a thing of beauty, thought Booth. Mikelson's latest attempt to crack her produced blow back that caused his own heart to shed its steel jacket.

"What trials do is give voices to the victims," Brennan said, her whole attitude changing as she spoke. This was the passionate Brennan, the one who allowed all the weight of her emotions to surface and speak for those who could not. "As a scientist, we look at all the evidence we can gather to allow each one to speak to us and allow us to tell their story. It's the story of their last few days or hours or minutes. But our job is to give them a voice. And that is all I want to do here."

"You think that what happened to me is the sole reason I am here today. You think that you can take small glimpses into my life and make conclusions that are shallow at best. We can make choices and change." For the first time in the trial, Booth felt Brennan's eyes on him. "Our experiences help us change and grow. But those experiences do not alter the facts of this case."

"Mark Gillette did not kill his foster father. The evidence supports that fact. I am sympathetic to Mark Gillette. Yes. But my time in the foster system does not alter the facts. The facts are important. Mr. Gillette's life is important as is the victim's life. Punishing the murderer, the real murderer is important."

"No matter how you see me," she paused, and closed her eyes as if trying to tap a reserve of resolve, "the facts are clear. The facts should determine the outcome of this case. The facts are important. Mark Gillette is important. The life of his foster parent is important."

She turned her eyes on Booth and he held her gaze. "The prosecution's claims that Mark Gillette killed George Webb do not make sense in light of the facts."

"What is irrefutable is the body of evidence. And that evidence clearly points out Mark Gillette's innocence."

"You know, she came back because of you."

Angela Montenegro had pulled him aside that evening and tried to give him hope. Brennan had been ushered out of the courtroom by the defense team, and in reality, Booth thought it a kindness to let her go. She'd been battered, but held steady, never wavering in her testimony. She had pulled apart Michael Stires' analysis of the skeletal remains of Webb with care and precision and clarity. It had not been an attempt to show up her former teacher or hurt the Jeffersonian, but only to present the facts.

Her testimony had sealed Mark Gillette's fate.

And Stires'.

"She came back because of you." Angela's words echoed in his head, but he would not give them weight to stay there.

He had joined the Jeffersonian team at Hodgins' home for a meal and drinks. The bug guys' spacious home offered a welcome respite from the closed in feeling of the courtroom. Luckily, Stires had found something else to occupy his time, or Booth might have declined the invitation.

Hodgins took him down to his garage that opened up to reveal over a dozen cars of various vintages.

Booth's enthusiasm quickly revived as he was introduced to each new vehicle by Hodgins. "Twenty-six Bentley Roadster," Hodgins was saying over a beer. "Kind of car that John Steed drove."

"The Avengers."

"Emma Peel."

Booth grinned. "She was hot."

"I saw the show in reruns. Unbelievable plots, but a hot chick and hot cars." Hodgins shook his head and cocked his head. "Steed and Mrs. Peel remind me a bit about you and Brennan."

Booth exhaled and it became a sigh.

"Hey, man, I just meant that it was like the two of you fighting crime. Putting away the bad guys."

Trying to avoid more mentions of his former partner, Booth began to pepper Hodgins with questions about the Bentley and the other cars he's amassed.

"So, here's where Hodgins keeps all his getaway cars," came Cam's distinctive voice echoing in the garage.

"Getaway?" Hodgins' voice rose in surprise. "Getaway from what?"

"Oh, the wife, the kids," Cam supplied, "the general rat race kind of stuff."

"And who else but Booth here to play as well." Angela held her wineglass aloft as if in toast. "Boys and their toys." She exchanged looks with Cam who smiled as well.

Booth glanced at his watch and realized he's spent more than a couple hours with Hodgins, popping the hoods of the cars and peering into some of the sweetest rides he'd seen in a long time. On more than one of the cars, Hodgins had allowed him to slide in behind the wheel and Booth could almost imagine he was long past his present life driving a highway to anywhere but where he was.

"Awe, man, sweet." Lance Sweets announced his presence with a string of adjectives filled with admiration. "Awesome. Cherry. Wow. Oh, man, wow."

Hodgins gave the cook's tour, briefly catching up Sweets on the vehicles while both Cam and Angela mostly stood to the side amused at the testosterone-fueled glee all three men seemed to share.

Had Booth jetted off to Hawaii to swim amid the coral reefs, he would not have felt so free of the last few days.

It was Cam who brought them all back to the reality. "I think I want to hear the closing arguments tomorrow,"

The elephant that had gracefully given them several hours without its presence stampeded into their lives again.

"If there was ever a case I wanted us to lose," Hodgins offered, "it's this one."

"Do you really think so?" asked Angela. Her hopeful tone was reflected in many of the faces.

"I know that I've been involved in many trials since I've started, certainly not as many as all of you," Sweets said, "but I don't think I've ever felt more ashamed of the judicial system as I was today."

Booth resisted the urge to slap the young man on his back.

"It's simply part of discrediting the witness," Cam said. Her voice was hollow. "It's judicial gamesmanship."

"It sucks," said Angela. "There was no reason to attack her like that. Stires made a mistake."

"And he wanted Brennan to know that he disagreed with her, Ange," Hodgins added. "And he probably felt like a fool when she so very calmly leveled his case."

Sweets pulled his eyes from the array of cars and shook his head. "He's drawing a line in the sand, so to speak. He's making it very clear to Dr. Brennan that he will attack her in order to keep his position at the Jeffersonian."

All eyes went to Cam. "The board is not going to fire him for losing this case, people." She looked at Booth. "If we lose this case. They'll see it as merely a professional disagreement on how to interpret the evidence."

"Even when the evidence exonerates Mark Gillette totally?"

Sweets' youthful earnestness was quietly re-affirming for Booth who felt less tired than he had in a while.

They left the matter of Dr. Stires' longevity at the Jeffersonian for another day as they began to draw away from the conversation and the garage. Cam said her goodnights, drawing Booth to her as she planted a kiss on his cheek. There were no words, but he understood.

Angela pulled him back toward the house as Lance sketched a wave and followed Cam toward their cars on the driveway.

"You know, she came back for you," she said, her arm laced around his as if to hold him in place.

He tried to shake off her words, but they offered him a hope he hadn't felt of late. He tamped that down quickly sure he couldn't handle any more disappointment in a day that had been emotionally draining.

"She asked me about you, Booth." She squeezed his arm to accentuate her point. "You know how she is. But she did ask me how you were doing."

He sighed. Angela conjured a fantasy out of a few words.

"She's been to see Gordon Gordon, Booth." She squeezed his arm again before releasing it and kissing his cheek. "And you know how much she hates psychology."

Almost two weeks after the verdict, Seeley Joseph Booth was sitting in the Founding Fathers, his nervous energy somewhat siphoned off as his left hand played with the poker chip he carried in his jacket pocket. First dates always made him nervous. He felt along his collar, and creased the top of the right side again.

He examined the clipping he had cut from the Herald that morning. An odd thing to bring on the date, but something he thought she would appreciate. Parker had pointed it out as part of class assignment to read a dozen science articles, and he had thought that Dr. Bones might like it.

Gillette's innocence had been quickly determined by the jury that deliberated only for a half hour before setting the young man free. Brennan had been his first hug, and the young man had lingered in her arms, almost limp with relief.

And he, Special Agent Seeley Booth, had arrested Gillette's foster mother within days of the verdict largely with the help of Brennan and Cam who had sought only the truth. The mother confessed to the crime. She confessed to her shame in her husband's weakness for the boys they had fostered over the years. She confessed to her own guilt for never stopping it until Gillette had been battered.

Then Brennan had surprised them all, taking Gillette into her home after agreeing to be his foster parent.

Only 6 months shy of his 18th birthday, the young man's presence meant the Jeffersonian would be without her services for some time. Cam certainly wanted her back, but Dr. Stires was flexing his political muscle at the institution and Brennan's return to the house of reason was uncertain at best.

Cared for and certain he would be safe, Mark Gillette seemed to have become a new person the few times Booth had seen them together that week. Gillette had thanked him for treating him well, for following the evidence to the real murderer, all the while Brennan looked on.

She had barely spoken at that first meeting. Gillette had capitalized the conversation that day at the Royal Diner. Booth had taken a chance and slid in beside the young man who had college brochures splayed out in front of him as he talked of a future. Neither Brennan nor Gillette seemed to mind his presence, and in the few minutes he sat with them, he felt an easiness in her presence that he knew he didn't really deserve.

He could see that she wasn't going to run away from him again. Gillette would act as an anchor for her while she weighed her options. While they both weighed their options.

"I'd like to stay in the area," Gillette had been saying. His enthusiasm had been evident, emboldened by the confidence she seemed to have in him. "I've missed so much school, what with the trial and all. I'll need to get my diploma first, but there are so many possibilities."

"We're looking into tutors," she said quietly, sipping at her coffee.

Gillette had surprised him, asking after his work with the FBI and showing a good understanding of what police work was all about. If Brennan had been the source of his information, neither would say, but by the time Booth had left the diner with them, he had grown to like the young man if only for the joy he showed for the possibilities offered to him. And the gratitude he felt toward Brennan.

"Sweets has given me a list of psychologists for Mark," she had told him as they stepped out into the sunshine in front of the diner. Mark had taken advantage of the light to race to the other side of the street and turn toward them as if taunting their slowness.

"You hate psychology," Booth said almost as a reflex.

In the natural light, her blue eyes seemed brighter. "The social worker insists he talk to someone and I think it's also a good idea."

He had meant to part at the doorway, not see her safely across the street before finding his own car, but her admission had derailed those plans.

"You?"

"Yes."

"You hate psychology," he repeated, emphasizing the middle word.

"He was in the foster system for almost 8 years, Booth," she said, taking his arm as they began to walk along the crosswalk. "He needs to talk to someone about his experiences."

The feel of her arm on his had surprised him, too, that day. In fact, it had emboldened him to join them anytime he saw the two of them at the diner.

Yet it was one late night as a hockey game wound down on the TV that he realized how right Angela had been.

The last seconds of the game ended in a flurry of shots on goal with little success as his Flyers hung on to their advantage that he realized someone was knocking on his door.

When he finally opened it, Brennan stood in the darkened hallway, her hair and face still carrying a light sheen of the rain outside.

"Bones?"

She hesitated. "I should have called, but I thought I would take the chance." Her eyes scanned the room and he knew she was nervous.

"C'mon in." He gestured toward the TV. "The game was on, I didn't really hear anyone at the door. You haven't been out there long, have you?"

"The Pilots?"

He grinned. "Flyers," he corrected her. "They won."

He gestured her to the couch and asked if she wanted a beer.

"I'd rather stand." She sighed. "I'm not very good at this."

"At what?"

She bit her bottom lip. "Any of this. All of this."

They stood there in silence as he waited.

"I'm, I'm sorry that you lost at trial, Booth. I know you hate that."

"I'd hate it more if we put the wrong person in jail." It did not take but a second to realize just how uncomfortable she was. She seemed to bounce on the balls of her feet. "Look, sit down or stand or whatever you need to do, Bones, but me, I'm sitting."

He made a great show of collapsing onto the couch and spread his arms across the back of it.

Tentatively, she sat down on the arm of a chair, but he had the sense that her emotions were battling her control.

For several minutes that sat there, stalemated. Finally, his curiosity won over his pride. "Cam said you've been home for a while."

"Angela," she corrected him. "Angela told Cam who told you."

"I thought you were going to be gone for a year." He tried to tamp down his own feelings. Almost six months apart had done nothing to quell how he felt about her. "Digging in Indonesia."

"Peru. I gave them four months," she conceded, "but I realized it wasn't where I wanted to be."

Her words hung in the heavy silence between them.

He knew how easy it would be to ask her where she had thought she wanted to be, but he hesitated. The first time he had seen her in the hallway outside the courtroom his stomach had tightened in that all-too familiar way it did when his desire and his hope and his pain competed to control him. Now in his apartment, he willed his breathing to be normal and his body to relax and his heart to remain in his chest.

"I wanted to be here, Booth," she breathed, "with you."

She had wanted to be with him before as a partner, he told himself. Nothing had changed, he cautioned.

Her smile, tentative and hopeful, caught up with her eyes which seemed to sparkle with a thousand possibilities.

"Do. . . do you love me?" he choked out.

Her nod. Her smile. Her eyes. Her body reaching out for his. All answered.

"Do you want me to prove it to you?"

Had he asked her to, she would have stayed that night in his arms and in his bed giving evidence of her love. Had he asked.

But with her in his arms, with her lips answering his, she had provided enough evidence.

oOo

Waiting for her now, he wondered if the words on the witness stand, "We can make choices and change," had been meant for him.

But when he saw her approach him he had little doubt. He stood as his grandfather had taught him and was rewarded with a kiss and a hug.

And a smile.

God, how he had missed her smile.


End file.
